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THE NECESSITY 



OF 



PRESERVING THE MEMORIALS OF THE 
PAST AND OF TRANSMITTING TO 
POSTERITY A JUST AND IM- 
PARTIAL HISTORY OF 
II NORTH CAROLINA. 



i 



AN ADDRESS 

BY 

Col. WM. H. S. BURGWYN, 

Df.i.ivrred bkfork the; Ai<umni Association of the University of M 
North Carolina, June 4, 1890, in Memorial 
Hall at Chapel Hill. 



Published by the Alumni Association. 



RALEIGH : 

EDWARDS & BROUGHTON, POWER PRINTERS AND BINDERS. 
1S90. 







THE NECESSITY 






OF 



PRESERVING THE MEMORIALS OF THE 
PAST AND OF TRANSMITTING TO 
POSTERITY A JUST AND IM- 
PARTIAL HISTORY OF 
NORTH CAROLINA. 



AN ADDRESS 



Col. WM. H. S. BURGWYN, 

Delivered before the Ai^umni Association oe the University of 

North Carolina, June 4, 1890, in Memorial 

Hall at Chapel Hill. 



Published by the Alumni Association. 



RALEIGH : 

EDWARDS & BROUGHTON, POWER PRINTERS AND BINDERS. 
1890. 






THE NECESSITY OF PRESERVING THE MEMO- 
RIALS OF THE PAST AND OF TRANSMITTING 
TO POSTERITY A JUST AND IMPARTIAL HIS- 
TORY OF NORTH CAROLINA. 

Mr. President, Young Gentlemen of the Philanthropie and Dia- 
lectic Societies, Ladies and Gejitlenien : 

IN 1863 Dr. Haven, in his inaugural address as President of 
Michigan University, used these words: "The Univer- 
sity of Michigan is the oldest, largest and most flourishing of 
the class of institutions that may rightly be regarded as State 
Universities." Prof. Herbert B. Adams, of the Johns Hopkins 
University, in his recent monograph on "The Study of History 
in American Colleges and Universities," says, " This statement 
was true for America in 1863, and it is true to day." 

Was it true in 1863? Is it true to-day? To prove his asser- 
tion. Prof. Adams relies upon the facts, first, that in the ordi- 
nance of 1787 providing for the government of the great 
Northwestern Territory it was declared that "schools and the 
means of education should forever be encouraged ;" and 
secondly, that in the Act of Congress of 1804-'$ for the organi- 
zation of the Territory of Michigan there was reserved a 
"township of land for the support of a University." 

Our surprise at so boastful a claim on the part of President 
Haven will not be lessened when we are told that no steps were 
taken by the territorial government towards University 
organization until the year 18 17, when an act was passed 
establishing the "University of Michigan;" but to fill the 
thirteen chairs provided for, there were only two professors 
elected — the President filling seven of them, and the Roman 
Catholic Bishop of the Territory the remaining .y/.f. 

I can make no stronger argument in support of my plea here 



4 NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, &fc. 

to-day for the institution of a separate chair of American His- 
tory and Political Science, at Chapel Hill, than the above 
remarkable statement of President Haven. Remarkable as 
emanating from such a source; surprising in its exhibition of 
unfairness, I would not say ignorance, on the subject he was 
treating. 

Listen, friends and fellow-citizens! In 1755 the Assembly 
of North Carolina passed an act appropriating ^6,000, equal 
to $150,000 in the money of to-day, for the endowment of a 
public school for the Province, and resolved " that under a 
sense of the many advantages that will arise to the Province 
from giving our youth a liberal education, whether considered 
in a moral, religious or political light, a public school or semi- 
nary of learning be erected and properly endowed, and for 
effecting the same the sum of ^6,000 already appropriated for 
that purpose be properly applied." 

But earlier than this. In his will, dated July 5, 1754, Col. 
James Innes, of the Cape Fear, and at the time Commander- 
in-chief of the expedition to the Ohio against the "French 
and their Indians," gave his plantation. Point Pleasant, a con- 
siderable personal estate, his library and ;{^iOO sterling "for 
the use of a free school for the benefit of the youth of North 
Carolina." This bequest, says Col. Saunders, was the first 
private bequest of the kind in the history of the State. 

But more remarkable still was the action of the Halifax 
Congress of November, 1776. This Congress adopted a Con- 
stitution and Bill of Rights for the people of North Carolina. 
It came together on the eve of a great civil war to deliberate 
upon the most solemn, delicate and difficult of all human 
undertakings. The time of its meeting was memorable. 
Rejoicings for the victory of Moore's Creek were still filling the 
air; the skirmishings at Lexington and Concord and the battle 
of Bunker's Hill had taken place the April and June of the pre- 
vious year. The Mecklenburg and Philadelphia Declarations 



NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, d-^<r. 5 

of Independence had been adopted, and the rule of the last 
royal governor had ceased in North Carolina ; all was confu- 
sion, uncertainty, and the ship of state was without a pilot ; 
and yet, the forty-first section of this Constitution is in these 
words, "A school or schools shall be established, and all useful 
learning shall be duly encouraged and promoted in one or more 
universities." 

We can but pause in reverential admiration for the lofty 
patriotism, noble purposes and sublime self-reliance of these 
men, who, in the midst of the weighty responsibilities, per- 
plexities and dangers of the time, while preparing the State 
for defence, could yet bethink themselves of the importance of 
education and bind the new government to provide for it. 

Had Professor Adams been aware of this clause in the North 
Carolina Constitution of 1776, and known that in 1789 the 
Legislature, as ;ts first action as a member of the new United 
States, proceeded to carry out the noble resolution of the 
Halifax Congress, and established a University for the higher 
education of the youth of the State, he could not have endorsed 
President Haven's unsustained assumption. 

But where does the fault lie? 

Have we in North Carolina done our part in this matter? 
Have we seen to it that such ignorance of our noble past 
should not prevail among educated people? 

Do we, ourselves, realize what a heritage we have ? 

When the world reads of Lexington and Concord and 
Bunker's Hill and Princeton and Trenton and Saratoga and 
Yorktown, do they read of Alamance, of Moore's Creek, of the 
Cowpens, of Ramsour's Mill, of Elizabethtown, of King's 
Mountain or of Guilford Court House? 

When it hears of the destruction of the tea in Boston Har- 
bor by men disguised and operating in the night, does it hear 
of the far more daring deed of Colonels Ashe and Waddell and 
their associates, who, eight years before, in broad daylight, 



6 NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, ^c. 

with a British man-of-war threatening them, the proclamation 
of the royal Governor denouncing them, demanded of that 
Governor (Tryon) that he desist from all attempts to execute 
the Stamp Act, and under threats of ^Durning the Governor's 
Palace, himself and the Stamp Master (Houston) as well, 
forced the Governor to surrender the latter, whom they com- 
pelled to take an oath at the public market-house not to exe- 
cute his office. 

" These are deeds which should not pass away, 
And names that must not wither, tho' the earth 
Forgets her empires with a just decay. 
The enslavers and enslaved, their death and birth." 

The world unites in homage to Washington, Greene, Franklin, 
Adams, Hamilton, and well it may. But how many recall the 
fact that in response to the appeal of the Governor of Virginia 
for troops to resist the French and their Indians on the borders 
of Virginia in i754-'55, that North Carolina enlisted more 
men to engage in that war than Virginia herself, and that a 
North Carolina soldier, Col. James Innes, was selected by the 
Governor of Virginia, over all competitors, including George 
Washington, to take the command in chief of the expedition. 

Serving in this campaign under Innes was another North 
Carolina soldier, destined to achieve even greater distinction 
than his superior ; who, but for his untimely death (April, 
1773,) at the early age of thirty-nine just before the breaking 
out of the Revolutionary war, might have been selected in- 
stead of Washington, to command the Continental armies, 
such was his reputation as an accomplished soldier and reso- 
lute patriot. 

As a North Carolinian, I express my gratification that the 
eminent services of this distinguished son of the State — Gen. 
Hugh Waddell — have not been permitted to remain unchron- 
icled, and that a descendant, worthy scion of such a stock. 



NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, &^c. 7 

has perpetuated the deeds and character of his great ancestor 
in a manner worthy of the subject and the time. 

There is John Ashe, " the most chivalrous hero of our Revo- 
lution " Gen. Francis Nash, Colonels Buncombe and Irwm, 
the heroes of Germantown, who gave their lives on that bloody 
field and saved the American army from defeat. Lillington 
and Caswell, who commanded at Moore's Creek; Sevier, 
Shelby Cleveland, McDowell and Winston, of Kings Moun- 
tain fame Thomas Brown, who commanded at the brilliant 
affair of Elizabethtown, which ended the Tory power in 
Bladen Gen. William R. Davie, justly called the father of 
the University, who, with Gen. Joseph Graham, in September, 
1780 so gallantly resisted the entrance of CornwaUis into 
Charlotte town. Robert Howe, the wit, the scholar and the 
soldier, who, with Cornelius Harnett, enjoys the distinction of 
being excepted from the pardon proclamation of the British 

General (May 5th, 1776)- 

Gen James Moore, appointed, in 1776, by Congress, Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the Southern Department, but in whose 
death soon thereafter there was lost the "first military 
aenius of the Province." Gen. Griffith Rutherford after 
whom Rutherford County is named. Gen. William L- David- 
son killed at Cowan's Ford (1781), resisting CornwaUis pas- 
sacri of the Catawba in his pursuit of Greene, and whose name 
and worth are perpetuated in Davidson College. Such names, 
such deeds, should be as household words with our people. ^ 
Oucrht our youth not to be told of John Harvey, of Perqui- 
mans County, the Moderator of the Provincial Congress, than 
whom no braver or wiser man has ever borne a part in the con- 
duct of affairs in North Carolina. 

Of Cornelius Harnett, the pride of the Cape Fear, the Samue 
Adams of North Carolina ; excepted from the proclamation of 
pardon, at last he is captured, thrown into prison, his health 
and fortune wrecked in the storms which assailed his country, 



8 NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, &-c. 

he dies in his imprisonment, childless and forlorn, leaving as 
his epitaph these immortal lines: 

" Slave to no sect, he took no private road, 
But looked through Nature, up to Nature's God." 

No North Carolinian should fail to read the eloquent pan- 
egyric on this great patriot by the Hon. Geo. Davis, of Wil- 
mington. 

And who hears, in these days, of Edward Mosely, the Sir 
Matthew Hale of North Carolina ; the incorruptible Judge in 
a time of general demoralization ; the great Tribune of the 
people's cause as against the encroachments of the crown and 
the Royal Governors? The foremost lawyer of his day, who, 
as early as 1716, in a formal resolution told the Governor and 
his Council " that the impressing of the inhabitants of their 
property under the pretence of its being for the public service, 
without authority from the Assembly, was unwarrantable, and 
a great infringement of the liberty of the subject." As has 
been well said, "The name of Mosely will never be without 
honor in North Carolina as long as time and gratitude shall 
live." 

But if we owe it to ourselves to rescue from oblivion the 
names and deeds of such men, how much more incumbent it 
is that we should refute the slanders and misrepresentations 
that have been cast upon our State. Among the many who 
have, either through ignorance or prejudice, denied us our just 
meed of praise on the one hand, or perverted history to our 
prejudice on the other, there is one historian who treats us 
fairly. " Are there any," says Bancroft, " who doubt man's 
capacity for self-government, let them study the history of 
North Carolina." 

There is probably no part of our history that is less under- 
stood, more perverted to our discredit, and less credit awarded 
where deserved, than the period from 1663 to 1775. 



NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, ^'c. 9 

THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 

That such injustice will not forever be done us in histories 
of those times I am led to believe, chiefly through the labors 
of one in whose bosom love for the State, pride in her record 
and confidence in her great future, burns as fiercely as did the 
love of freedom in the men of the Revolution. 

In his youth, serving his country on the battle-fields of the 
late war, enduring hardships, sustaining bodily injuries from 
the effects of which his latter days are spent in pain and 
debility, he is devoting the strength still left him, and the 
hours of cessation from pain, to the noble purpose of preserv- 
ing the memorials of the past, and of transmitting to posterity 
a just and faithful history of those times. 

Until called by his people to his present of^ce of honor, he 
served them, after the late war, in the high place as leader of 
public opinion through the public press. 

In reference to this work, which his ofificial position imposed 
on him, he says, " that for seven years he has devoted him- 
self to it, and has done the best he could, without reward or 
the hope of reward, and solely because of the love he bears to 
North Carolina and her people." 

Such are the words of a patriot ; and I trust I offend not 
against the proprieties of this occasion in thus publicly express- 
ing my humble opinion of the work done and the good accom- 
plished for North Carolina by the Hon. Wm. L. Saunders, 

Says Col. Saunders ; " Under the rule of the Lords Proprie- 
tors the people of North Carolina were confessedly ' the freest 
of the free,' and their legal status in this respect was due, in 
their opinion, to the royal charter under which the colony had 
its rise and got its'growth. To them Magna Charta, the Great 
Charter, was not the one granted by King John to the English 
Barons at Runnymede, but the one granted by Charles II. to 
the Lords Proprietors of the jProvince of North Carolina." 



10 NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, ofc. 

In addition to this, when we consider that the governors of 
North Carolina, both under the proprietary and royal govern- 
ments, were not natives, but, for the most part, needy adven- 
turers who came over here to make their fortunes at the 
expense of the colonies, we can understand why Culpepper 
rebelled against the usurper Miller (1677), and not wonder that 
Governors Jenkins, and Miller, and Eastchurch, and Seth 
Sothel — a lord proprietor himself — and Glover, and Hyde, and 
Burrington were turned out of office by the people, until it 
became such a common thing that the Governor of Virginia 
(Spottswood) said, "the North Carolinians were so used to 
turning out their Governors that they thought they had the 
right to do so." 

The theory of the British Crown was that the colonies were 
only for the benefit of the mother country; that the colonies 
had neither rights nor interests that the Crown, or the mother 
country, must regard. The people, on the other hand, thought 
they possessed rights that not only the Governor, but the King 
himself, was bound to respect. After thirty years of ro3'al rule, 
the Governor wrote to the Lords of the Board of Trade that 
the Assembly held that their Charter still subsisted, and that 
it bound the King as well as the people. As has been well 
said: "All the so-called rebellions and disturbances arose from 
the efforts of the people to resist illegal and usurped authority. 

Culpepper opposed a drunkard who tried to act as Governor 
without credentials. The Cary rebellion was resistance to 
tyrannical invasion of religious freedom. The many acts of 
resistance against Everard and the hot-headed Burrington were 
because they endeavored to act as despotic kings, to control 
the General Assembly and the judiciary. 

The many collisions between the people and the courts were 
caused by the attempts of the chief justices to exercise powers 
contrary to the rights of the litigants. The people steadily 
resisted all efforts by governors, judges and councillors to 



NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, c^c. II 

make them pay their quit-rents in sterling money instead of 
"proclamation money" (paper money). They claimed the 
right to pay rents in " proclamation money," or, if they pre- 
ferred, in commodities at rated values, and deliverable at their 
homes. Governors Johnston and Dobbs tried to force deliv- 
ery at points convenient to the government, but " the people 
resisted, overawed the courts and beat their officers." 

Governor Johnston tried to reduce the representation of the 
"Albemarle counties," and employed the expedient of summon- 
ing the Assembly to meet in the extreme southern part of the 
province, at a time inconvenient to the Albemarle planters, in 
order to carry his point in their absence. The people refused 
to recognize his Assembly, denied the validity of its acts, and 
lived six years in open defiance of his government, without 
paying taxes, without courts and without representatives in 
his General Assembly. Was there ever a similar instance of 
resistance to oppression ? 

Governors Dobbs and Tryon, under instructions from the 
Crown, tried to pass court laws, which the people regarded as 
tj'rannical, and preferred no courts to bad courts. 

Fanning and others, carpet-baggers, charged extortionate 
fees, and sheriffs seized property for taxes, whicli could not be 
paid because specie was not be had and paper money issues 
were forbidden. The Regulators arose by the thousands, and 
the War of the Regulation began. 

WAR OF THE REGULATION. 

This movement commenced at the August session, 1766, of 
Orange County Court, and ended in defeat and slaughter at 
the battle of Alamance, May 16, 1771. 

On the day before the battle the Regulators, numbering 
probably two thousand men, under no leadership, without cav- 
alry or artillery, many even without arms or ammunition, had 
assembled on the banks of the Alamance. 



12 NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, &^c. 

Gov. Tryon, with some ten or eleven hundred soldiers, with 
cavalry and artillery, commanded by Colonels Ashe, Leach, 
Caswell, Hinton, Thompson, Bryan and Craig, camped near 
them. At six o'clock in the afternoon the Regulators sent a 
petition to the Governor "signed in behalf of the county" by 
John Williams, Samuel Low, James Wilson, Joseph Scott and 
Samuel Clark. The language of this remarkable document is 
sad beyond comparison. 

It contains not a suggestion of resistance to lawful authority, 
but is an humble beseeching appeal for the poor privilege of 
laying before the Governor a " full detail of all their grievances," 
which, if granted to them, as runs the language of the paper, 
" would yield such alacrity and promulgate such harmony in 
poor pensive North Carolina." -5^ * * Poo?', pensive NortJi 
Carolina! To what a condition of dejection must a people 
be reduced to employ such language. The hand that penned 
that line may have been one of those laid forever cold and 
motionless after the morrow's battle. I confess to a feeling of 
unutterable pity as I think of these men. 

Despairing of redress, about to engage in a hopeless battle, 
the consequences of which could only be death on the scaffold 
to the ringleaders, and yet they quailed not. No round rob- 
bin here to escape individual responsibility. 

The petition is contemptuously rejected ; the morrow's bat- 
tle takes place ; the defeat is sustained ; the leaders captured, 
carried in triumph to Hillsboro ; tried by court-martial ; twelve 
convicted and sentenced to be hung, and six immediately exe- 
cated. 

One of these victims, known as the "Rifleman Pugh," when 
placed under the gallows, asked permission to speak ; he was 
given a half hour. 

He was perfectly calm, even dignified ; not a muscle quivered. 
He began by saying that he had long, as he hoped and believed, 
been prepared to meet his God ; that he was not, therefore, afraid 



NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, ^c. I 3 

to die ; that he had no acknowledgment of wrong to make, no 
pardon to ask for what he had done. Then addressing his coun- 
trymen he told them that he was sure his blood would be as seed 
sown on good ground, and that ere long they would see it pro- 
duce an hundred fold. He then recapitulated briefly the oppres- 
sions of the people, and the causes which had led to the conflict,' 
asserting that the Regulators had taken the life of no man before 
the battle commenced, and that they sought nothing more 
than the lawful redress of their grievances. 

He then turned to the Governor and charged him with hav- 
ing brought an army there to murder the people instead of 
taking sides with them, as he should have done, against a 
swarm of dishonest officers; he advised him to put away his 
corrupt favorites, and to be the friend of the people whom he 
was sent to govern ; "and here," said he, pointing to Fanning, 
"here is one of those favorites, utterly unfit to be in authority 

" At these words, the denounced minion gave the signal, 

and the further fearless denunciation was hushed in death 
before the allotted half hour had expired. 

Who will be so bold as to say, judging each by his station 
in life, his opportunities, his motives and aims, whether the 
brilliant, gifted and honored Robert Emmet, expiating his 
rebellion against the same government on the scaffold at Dub- 
lin twenty-two years afterwards (1803), or the humble, unedu- 
cated, but brave and pious Pugh, hanging from the gal- 
lows on the hill near Hillsboro, be the greater patriot. 'Tis 
true the latter did not defend his cause with the eloquence and 
pathos that marked Eminet's appeal to the jury that con- 
demned him, and no poet has arise«n to celebrate Pugh's death 
in immortal verse ; but the homely language of this plain coun- 
try blacksmith, as in sublime disregard of his immediate death 
he denounced the Governor and the practices he countenanced, 
fill me with inexpressible admiration of this man's nobleness 
of character and lofty patriotism. 



14 A'ECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, ofc. 

Thias and here was the first blood spilled in these United 
States in resistance to exactions of English rulers and oppres- 
sions by the English government. Says the historian : '"Had 
this battle terminated differently, the banks of Alamance 
would be venerated as another Bunker Hill, and Husbands, 
Merrill and others, ranked with the Warrens and patriots of 
another day." 

Four years after this sad event, the Congress at Hillsboro 
resolved " that those participating in the war of the Regula- 
tion ought not to be punished for doing so," and appointed a 
committee to induce those same Regulators to unite with the 
Colonial forces against the mother country ; and mirabile dictu ! 
as members of that committee we find the Rev. Mr. Patillo, 
the Presbyterian divine, who had denounced these Regulators 
in a pastoral letter to his congregation ; David Caswell, whose 
bayonets at Alamance had won the battle, and Maurice Moore, 
the Judge, who after the battle had condemed the ringleaders 
and poor Pugh to be hung. Is further evidence necessary to 
vindicate the motives and actions of these men from the asper- 
sions and criticisms that have been lavished upon them? I 
feel it a privilege, as well as a duty, to say this much in defense 
of a cause for which these men fought and died. 

Though at the end of the royal Government (1775) there were 
but two schools in the whole Province, those of New Berne and 
Edenton, there must have been at that period many men of edu- 
cation and literary attainment in North Carolina. The resolves 
of the Provincial Congresses, the Provincial Councils, the District 
Committees of Safety and the addresses which they published to 
the country, are so remarkable for the purity of the language, 
the simplicity and beauty of the style, and for cogency of 
argument, as to excite our wonder, for they cannot be sur- 
passed by the most polished productions of any age. The 
letter addressed to Gov. Tryon by Judge Moore under the 



NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, &^c. I 5 

signature ^' AtticKs,'' shows the master hand of a Juvenal or a 
Junius. 

After 163 years no better plan for alleviating the depressed 
condition under which agriculture is at present suffering, has 
been suggested by the thinkers and statesmen of to-day, than 
was devised and put in successful operation by the General 
Assembly of North Carolina, in 1727. 

So successful was the plan that it was adopted in Pennsyl- 
vania and other of the Provinces, and recommended by Gov. 
Pownal, who had presided over Massachusetts, South Caro- 
lina and New Jersey, to the mother country for establishment 
in all the Colonies. Truly those men of the old Colonial days 
were the peers of any, measure them by what standard you 
may. 

~ " The Colonial History of North Carolina shows a people 
loyal and submissive to legal authority; bold, enduring and 
indomitable in resistance to illegal usurpation, and this has 
always been their spirit. The spirit of the Revolution was 
born in Colonial North Carolina, and defiance of British 
authority had existed practically here one-half a century before 
the Declaration of Independence." 

NORTH CAROLINA AND THE REVOLUTION. 

As we come to the Revolutionary history of North Carolina 
our thoughts instinctively turn to Moore's Creek, King's Moun- 
tain, the Cowpens and Guilford Court-house. 

It was at Moore's Creek (February 22, 1776,) that the first 
conflict between the Colonists and the troops of the mother 
country took place in North Carolina. At Guilford Court- 
house (March 15, 1781), more than five years thereafter, the 
last battle in the State between those forces was fought. 

Between these events there was won by the Colonists the 



l6 NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, Ssfc. 

brilliant victories of Ramsour's Mill (June 20, 1780), King's 
Mountain (October 7, 1780), the Cowpens (January 17, 1781), 
and Elizabethtown (July, 1781). 

The author of the "Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World" 
has selected the battle of Saratoga (October 17, 1777) as one 
of those turning points in the world's history. Had the facts 
about the battle of King's Mountain, and the bearing of that 
victory upon the subsequent military operations in the South, 
been as well ascertained then as they are now. Professor Creecy 
might have hesitated before he selected Saratoga rather than 
King's Mountain as his illustration. Had Ferguson been the 
victor, could Cornwallis have had him with his elevfen hundred 
men to' assist at Guilford Court-house, the march to Yorktown 
might never have been made, and to day the banner of Saint 
George might be floating over our heads rather than the Stars 
and Stripes. 

The details of this battle should be with us as household 
words, for history records no more brilliant military exploit in 
all the annals of modern warfare than the victory at King's 
Mountain. 

A citizen of North Carolina, " convinced that great injustice 
has been done to the militia of North Carolina in regard to 
their conduct at the battle of Guilford Court-house, resolved, 
as a dutiful son, to write in defence of his native State, and in 
vindication of the honor and patriotism of her people." 

Could a more honorable duty devolve upon one ? Could 
any one have performed this duty in a manner more patriotic 
and satisfactory than it has been in this instance by the Hon. 
David Schenck, of Greensboro? 

Through the patriotic investigations of this distinguished 
North Carolinian it is now established, that before the deadly 
fire of that undisciplined militia the flower of the British army 
recoiled in dismay; that one-half of the Highlanders dropped 
before them ; that nearly one-third of Webster's Brigade was 



NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, &c. 1/ 

annihilated in their front. Yes, men of Guilford, you more 
than obeyed your orders. You fired your flint-lock rifles twice 
and continued to fire till the Hessians mounted the intervening 
fence, and then you clubbed your weapons and fought them 
back hand to hand. 

Had all the troops on that fated field served their General 
and their country as did Eaton's and Butler's North Carolina 
Militia, and Forbis' Volunteers, Guilford Court-house might 
have been a second King's Mountain, and to Greene, rather than 
to Washington, Cornwallis surrendered his sword. 

As it was, to-day's victory is followed by the morrow's retreat 
of the British General, and not till he reached the protection 
of his fleet riding in the waters of the Cape Fear did Corn- 
wallis find repose from the incessant attacks of the pursuing 
foe. Truly has it been said, "The battle of Guilford Court- 
house made Yorktown possible." 

One would think such a record as above is glory enough for 
a people. But it may surprise some to be told that not alone 
to her own territory did North Carolina confine her efforts in 
behalf of independence. 

When the city of Boston was under embargo in 1774, 
and her citizens in distress, the people of North Carolina 
declared that "the cause of Boston is the cause of all," and 
from Wilmington and New Bern ships laden with supplies were 
sent as a contribution to their brothers in want at Boston. 

It was the one thousand men from North Carolina under 
Colonel Robert Howe that enabled the Virginians to drive 
Governor Dunmore out of the State in 1775; and another one 
thousand -men under Colonels Martin, Polk and Rutherford 
were sent to South Carolina to help put down the Tories in 
that State who were too strong for our Southern neighbor; and 
at Germantown, in Pennsylvania, it was Nash and his North 
Carolina troops that saved the day to the American army. 

It should not be forgotten that, as early as April 12, 1776, 



l8 NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, ct'c. 

the Congress at Halifax passed a resolution instructing their 
delegates in the Continental Congress at Philadelphia "to con- 
cur with the delegates from the other colonies in declaring 
independence;" and that the Congress at Hillsboro of August 
the year previous had raised two regiments of regulars and five 
battalions of minute men, and ofTered bounties for the manu- 
facture of munitions of war — all in preparation for the inevitable 
conflict with the mother country. 

"At Mecklenburg in May, 1775, the people of a county 
talked independence; at Hillsboro in August the people of the 
whole Province deliberately and resolutely acted it ; and all 
this nearly a year prior to the Declaration of July 4, 1776." 

WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION. 

The women of the Revolution were no less heroic and patri- 
otic than the men. 

Mary Slocumb rode all night on horseback a distance of 
sixty miles to join her husband under Lillington and Caswell. 
She reached the battle-field of Moore's Creek as the field was 
won. Spending the day in attending to the wounded, Whigs 
and Tories alike, at night-time she started for home, and with- 
out resting reached her destination next day, having ridden 
one hundred and twenty miles in forty-eight hours. 

William Mills and his wife, Eleanor, were living on Greene 
River, now Rutherford County. Their house was .surrounded 
by Indians several times, and twice they were driven away. 
At one time the husband returned from hunting to find his 
house robbed, his wife gone and everything laid waste. Wild 
with despair he commenced moaning and tearing his hair, 
when, like an angel, his wife appeared, unharmed! As the 
Indians entered the house she crept out of a small window in 
the garret and slid cfown the chimney, making her way to the 
swamp near by, where she lay concealed till she heard her hus- 



NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, ^c. I9 

band's voice. At another time she escaped in a similar manner, 
and when a whole troop of Indians were ripping up feather- 
beds and yelling over their plunder, she raised a shout, solitary 
and alone, in the swamp near the house, " Hurrah for King 
George and his army !" with such rapidity and vehemence that 
the whole herd of savages took to their heels, and she, alone, 
gained a bloodless victory. 

William Mills lived to his eighty-eighth year, and left eighty- 
nine grandchildren. At the death of his wife, as he walked 
out by a spring near the freshly-made grave, he remarked, tears 
streaming o'er his furrowed cheeks, "I and Nelly drank upon 
our knees at that spring fifty-five years ago, when there was no 
white man's foot in all this country." The old patriarch died 
in 1834, and sleeps by the side of his wife near Edneyville, 
Henderson County. 

NORTH CAROLINA AND THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. 

No proceeding in all her history seems to me more honorable 
than the conduct of the State when called upon to adopt the 
United States Constitution. 

Since the able and exhaustive addresses of Dr. Battle and 
Captain Ashe at the recent Centennial Celebration at Fayette- 
ville, nothing need be said in elucidation of this part of our 
State's history. These gentlemen, worthy descendants of 
noble revolutionary sires, fully vindicated the conduct of those 
members of the Hillsboro Convention (1788) who succeeded in 
delaying the ratification until certain amendments could be 
secured. It would seem, there was not so much difference of 
opinion as to the necessity for certain amendments to the Con- 
stitution as submitted — for all pretty much agreed as to this — 
but Governor Johnston, Judge Iredell, General Davie and their 
friends wished the Constitution should first be adopted and 
then the amendments could be secured ; but Willie Jones, Gal- 



20 NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, Ss^c. 

loway, Spencer, Battle and a majority of the Convention, con- 
tended for the position which Mr. Jefferson advised should be 
the action of Virginia, viz., that he wished nine States would 
adopt it, not because it deserved ratification, but to preserve 
the Union, but he wished the other four States would reject it 
that there might be a certainty of obtaining amendments. 

That North Carolina's action was wise, subsequent events 
proved ; for the first United States Congress had no sooner met 
than ten amendments were proposed to the several Legislatures 
for acceptance, which amendments substantially embodied 
what was contended for in the Hillsboro Bill of Rights, and 
thereupon the Constitution was at once ratified at Fayetteville, 
on November 21, 1789. But, at the same time, it was nnaiii- 
moiisly resolved that additional amendments should be asked, 
and the first of these was in these words: "That Congress 
shall not alter, modify or interfere in the times, places and 
manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, 
or either of them, except when the Legislature of any State 
shall neglect, refuse or be disabled by invasion or rebellion to 
prescribe the same, or in case when the provision made by the 
State is so imperfect as that no consequent election is had." \\\ 
the light of certain legislation on this subject now pending in 
Congress, was not this resolution truly prophetic? 

I confess a profound admiration for these sturdy patriots of 
the Revolution. How nobly and persistently they fought in 
council to preserve those rights and liberties won in a .'--even 
years' war. How wisely, with what forebodings, the)' discu.ssed 
the effects of the powers granted the general government by 
certain clauses in the Federal Constitution. How carefully in 
their own State Constitution had they guarded those rights 
and liberties, and limited the power of the chief executive. 

We can well conceive that it was a thankless business to fight 
against the prestige of Washington, to oppose such men as 
Governor Johnston, Judge Iredell and General Davie, but 



NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, 6^<r. 21 

'■ They were men, high-minded men, 
Who knew their rights, and knowing, dared maintain." 

It is perhaps well, in this connection, to call attention to 
these facts: 

The Congress that adopted the State Constitution met at 
Halifax, November 12, 1776. On December 6 the form of the 
Constitution was ready for adoption, and on the i8th the Con- 
stitution, with the Bill of Rights, was formally adopted. This 
Constitution, with some slight amendments in 1836, was the 
form of government for our people until the end of the late Civil 
War, nearly one hundred years. When adopted there was no 
precedent for such a system. It was also conceived in the midst 
of civil war; yet it answered every purpose during the war with 
Great Britain, during the interval between peace and the adop- 
tion of the United States Constitution, and was practically 
unchanged all the years of peace thereafter and during the late 
Civil War, and afterwards until the strong arm of the conqueror 
came in and a new Constitution was adopted in 1868. What 
a marvel of human sagacity and statesmanship in the men of 
those times! We can but exclaim in the words of another: 
" How well North Carolina must have been grounded in the 
faith to have shown no check in her career when Hugh Wad- 
dell and James Moore, two of her very best soldiers, and John 
Harvey, her acknowledged civil leader, went to the grave at 
the very outset of the great struggle, just at the time when 
they were so much needed." 

NORTH CAROLINA IN PEACE UP TO 1 86 1. 

As to the character of her people in peace, they were plain, 
modest, conservative, religious; free from crime, from isms, 
from extreme poverty or wealth; sociable, kind and temperate; 
the best society elegant, polished and liberally educated; her 
statesmen patriotic; her judges incorruptible; her domestic 



22 NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, &"€. 

institution, slavery, was mild, and until 1836, the free negroes 
in the State exercised equally with the white citizens all the 
rights of freemen, including that of voting. 

NORTH CAROLINA IN THE LATE CIVIL WAR. 

• On April 15, 1861, Governor Ellis received the following 
telegraphic dispatch : 

"War Department, 
" Washington, April 15, 1861. 
" To Governor Ellis: 

"Call made on you by to-night's mail for two regiments of 
rr)il-itary for immediate service. 

" Simon Cameron, 

'■'Secretary of WarT 

Seldom have words of such direful consequences been penned 
by human hand. 

True to her traditions, consistent with her conservatism, 
happy, prosperous and contented, the people of North Caro- 
lina were not in favor of secession. 

As late as February 28, 1861, though her sister States of 
South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and 
Louisiana had seceded and formed an Independent Govern- 
ment, yet the people of North Carolina voted down the call 
for a convention to consider even the question of secession. 
We sent two delegations, one to the Peace Convention at 
Washington City, and one to the Confederate Congress at 
Montgomery, with instructions to each to make a last attempt 
for peace. 

But in vain ! As the wires flashed the fatal message of Sec- 
retary of War Cameron, we can believe 



NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, a'c. 23 

" Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat, 
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe, 
That all was lost. " 

If a people can ever lawfully change their form of Govern- 
ment, it is when they act on such a dread Resolve in conven- 
tion assembled representing the sovereignty of the State. 

It was a convention called by the General Assembly of the 
State, that in 1789 passed the ordinance ratifying the United 
States Constitution. 

It was a convention, similarly called, that seventy-two years 
later passed the ordinance repealing the former one and reassum- 
ing North Carolina's sovereignty, as a " free and independent 
State." 

It can no longer be questioned that it was to the universal 
belief among the people of North Carolina, that the ordinance 
of May 20th, 1 861— mark you, not an ordinance of secession, 
but an ordinance of repeal and re-assumption of sovereignty- 
was a matter of necessity and an act of self-preservation, and 
that it was in all respects legal and effective, and that the 
citizen's first duty of allegiance was to his State, that the 
response to the call of the Governor for troops to defend their 
borders against invasion met with such marvelous enthusiasm 
on the part of the people. 

Listen to the reply of Governor Ellis to Secretary Cam- 
eron's telegraphic dispatch, written the same day. 

-Sir— Your dispatch is received and, if genuine, which its 
extraordinary character leads me to doubt, I have to say in 
reply, that I regard the levy of troops made by the adminis- 
tration for the purpose of subjugating the States of the South, 
as in violation of the Constitution and as a gross usurpation 
of power. I can be no party to this wicked war upon the 
liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from North 
Carolina." 



24 NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, c^c. 

I question whether history records a nobler protest against 
usurped authority than this spontaneous reph/ of Governor 
Ellis. As he wrote it a mortal disease was sapping his life's 
blood and soon thereafter he sank into the tomb. But who 
would not be content to die, his last words on earth breathing 
the sublime spirit of love of liberty that was contained in the 
indignant answer of this devoted son of the State? 

" The words of dying men enforce attention like deep harmony : 
Where words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain, 
For they breathe truth, who breathe their words in pain." 

NORTH CAROLINA'S LOSS IN THE LATE WAR. 

If North Carolina was slow to take this step of Revolution — 
and slow she ought to have been, for the consequences she well 
knew would be momentous — when the step was taken there 
was no hesitation, no looking back; and, as if by magic, from 
her distant territories across the mountains, from the table- 
lands of the Piedmont section, from the low-lands washed by 
the Atlantic, came men crowding to the fray ; and though 
among the last to join the Confederacy, she was among the 
first in the field ; and was there ever such a fight? 

Out of a military population of 1 15,000 she equipped and 
sent to the field 125,000 fighting men. 

Of the ninety-two regiments under General Lee in the seven 
day's fighting around Richmond in 1862, North Carolina fur- 
nished forty-six; and the killed and wounded in the North 
Carolina regiments at Chancellorsville constituted more than 
half the killed and wounded in the army of Northern Virginia 
in that, battle. And so it was from battle to battle, from 
campaign to campaign, wherever the fighting was the fiercest 
and the killing the deadliest. North Carolina troops were in 
the front. 

And when human endeavor could do no more, and the last 
supreme effort to save his army was to be made, its commander 



NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, &^c. 25 

selected a North Carolina General and North Carolina troops 
for the desperate service. 

That State, which was the first to offer up a soldier's life in 
that fratricidal war, now, after four years of struggle, is to make 
the last charge and fire the last shot as the curtain falls forever 
on the bloody drama on the field of Appomattox. 

Witnessing this last, this heroic charge to break the enemy's 
lines, made by Grimes' division of North Carolina troops, says 
General Lee, "God bless North Carolina!" These are the last 
words of military encomium pronounced by General Lee on 
this his last field of battle. 

Those of us who were privileged to be present last week in 
Richmond, and to participate in that marvellous tribute to the 
dead hero, can bear witness that the State that furnished most 
soldiers to follow and guard him while living, sent most of 
those same soldiers to do him honor when dead. 

But again we fail to get the credit for what we do. 

" Quia carent vate sacro." 

When we reflect that in the Franco-Prussian war of iSjo-yi, 
one of the greatest of European wars, the German loss in killed 
or died of wounds was only 3 i-io per cent.; that in the Crimean 
war the allied armies lost 3 2-10 per cent., and in the war of 
1866 the Austrian army lost only 2 6-10 per cent, from the same 
causes, and that the total loss in killed, wounded and died 
of disease in the Union army was 8 6-10 per cent, of their 
enrollment of 2,320,272 men, we are prepared to believe that 
the fighting in our Civil War was the most desperate of all 
modern wars. But when we ascertain that North Carolina's 
loss in that war was over thirty -five per cent, of her entire mili- 
tary population of 1 861, we may well exclaim in the language 
of a Northern writer (author of "Regimental Losses in the 
American Civil War"], "Theresult is extraordinary in its heroic 



26 NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, b'c. 

aspect." It is also established by the same authority that not 
only do North Carolina troops head the list on both sides of 
commands that sustained the greatest regimental loss in any 
one battle, but also they head the other list, that of the great- 
est percentage of loss sustained in any one battle; and this per- 
centage on the fatal field of Gettysburg, in one command, 
reached the almost incredible figures of 86 3-10 per cent., viz., 
708 out of 820 men carried into action. 

RECONSTRUCTION. 

When the Congress at Hillsboro (August, 1775,) proceeded 
to exercise every function of government, and to provide for 
the impending struggle with the mother country, by the 
erection of what in this day would be styled a provisional gov- 
ernment, they felt called upon to give to the world a reason 
for a proceeding so extraordinary and revolutionary. They 
declared that there was "a silence of the legislative powers of 
government in North Carolina." This excuse was doubtless 
the best that could be given at the time, and served as a rally- 
ing cry for the Revolutionists, but it was almost sublime in its 
impudence, for at the time the Royal Governor was actually in 
the Province, and fulminating his proclamations from aboard 
the British man-of-war in the Cape Fear. 

It was reserved for the days of reconstruction when a saying 
equally as famous in our day became current as the other was 
one hundred years ago ; but a saying ominous to the Anglo- 
Saxon ear, and one sounding a death-knell to the liberty of the 
citizen. " The judiciary is exhausted," said the highest judicial 
officer in North Carolina. Fortunately for the State, in this 
he was mistaken. Another high judicial officer, disregarding 
all consequences personal to himself, and against the protest of 
the Governor to whose recommendation he owed his office, 
ordered the Sacred Writ to issue, and the parties unlawfully 



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distrained of their liberties to be brought before him. And 
again, and we hope forever, was there saved to the State the 
liberties of her citizens, and the Constitution of their fathers. 

To no one person in all their history are the people under 
greater obligations for a single exercise of judicial power 
than to this inflexible Judge of the United States District 
Court of North Carolina, the late Hon. George W. Brooks. 

Seldom has it been the fortune of a people to merit such an 
occasion. Happy is the people who can furnish the man who, 
at such a crisis, fearlessly comes uj) to the full measure of a 
patriot, and does a deed that should go sounding down the 
ages. What State in the American Union can point to an 
event so honorable in the life of one of her judges as we can in 
North Carolina in telling of Judge Brooks' fearless conduct in 
this "epochal hour and time of crisis." 

Let the people of North Carolina delay no longer to erect a 
monument in honor of this Federal Judge "who dared to do 
right, and to discharge his duty in the face of personal sacrifice 
and perhaps danger; and at a time of great darkness; when an 
awful calamity rested upon them; and clouds hung lowering 
and black in the political heavens." Such a monument should 
have inscribed these lines: 

" Justum et tenacem propositi viium 
Non civium ardor prava jubenlium, 
Non voltus instantis tyranni 
Mente quatit solida. * * * 
Si .fractus illabatur orbis 
Impavidum ferient ruiriK." 

THE NEED OF A CHAIR OF HISTORY. 

In an address before Cornell University, June 2i, 1871, Pro- 
fessor D. C. Oilman, now President of The Johns Hopkins 
University, said : " It will be a curious inquiry for some philo- 



28 iVECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, &^c. 

sophical writer on the intellectual progress of this country to 
ascertain what were the themes, the text-books, the methods 
of instruction and tuition which prevailed in the American 
colleges prior to the Revolution ; what sort of instruction at 
Cambridge filled Samuel and John Adams with their notions 
of civil liberty; what sort of culture at New Haven brought 
Jonathan Edwards to his lofty rank among the theologians of 
this country and of Scotland ; what discipline at Princeton 
fitted James Madison to exert such influences upon the forma- 
tion of the Constitution, and what academic drill at Columbia 
College made Alexander Hamilton the founder of our national 
credit and our financial system." 

Though Columbia College claims the honor of being the 
first American institution to recognize History as worth}^ of a 
professional chair, and in 18(7 appointed the Rev\ John 
McVickar Professor of Philosophy, Rhetoric and Belles-Let- 
tres, who, under the broad regis of a philosophical professor- 
ship, protected and encouraged historico-political studies, yet it 
was not until 1839 ^^^^^ the first distinctive endowment of a 
Chair of History in any American college was made. This 
was done by Harvard, and it led the way to the recognition 
of History as worthy of an independent chair in all our higher 
institutions of learning. 

In 1855, Michigan University instituted a department of 
History and English Literature. 

Yale had no historical professorship until 1865. 

In 1857, Columbia College, New York, called Dr. Eraucis 
Lieber from Columbia College, South Carolina, to its new Pro- 
fessorship of History and Political Science. 

This call of Dr. Lieber marks the first recognition by a 
Northern college of History and Politics as co-ordinate sciences. 
This combination would seem to be the best. History is past 
politics, and politics is present history. History is primarily 
the experience of man in organized societies; political science 



NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, &'c. 29 

is the application of this historical experience to the existing 
problems of an ever-progressive society. History and politics 
are as inseparable as past and present. 

Almost every institution for the higher education now has 
courses in American history, and it is not a pleasant reflection 
for us, that, in a list embracing some fifty colleges in the United 
States showing the principal facts relating to the study of 
history in American colleges and universities, the University 
of North Carolina is not mentioned. 

THE STATE UNIVERSITY THE PLACE FOR IT. 

An adequate foundation for the prosecution of studies in 
American institutions can only be made at the University. It 
is not called for in schools below that rank. History has be- 
come a technical study and it must be pursued as such. The 
tendency of the educational work of to-day is towards speciali- 
zation. Technical instruction is the only instruction that 
counts in this world ; general information has little, if any, 
value compared with it; everything about something, not 
something about everything, is the desideratum in education. 
When President White, who had been President of the Uni- 
versity of Michigan, became President of Cornell, he selected 
the Chair of History. Says a recent writer: "If there is one 
idea which President White has represented more strongly 
than any other at Cornell University, it is the idea of educa- 
ting the American youth in History and Political Science. 
This is and has always been the leading idea of his life." 

History is simply the record of human experience, whether 
in physics, politics, economics, ethics or education. 

The leading idea in the great University of Michigan now 
is that it should be the head of the public school system of the 
States. It was not until 1852, when Dr. Tappan became its 
President and announced in his inaugural address that the 



30 NECESSITY OF PRESERVING MEMORIALS, 6-<r. 

University of Michigan should be the roof and crown of the 
State's system of education, that a new era was marked in the 
history of that institution. He there first suggested the estab- 
lishment of a distinct Professorship in History and PoHtical 
Economy. 

As late as 1871 President White said: " It is a curious fact, 
and one not very creditable to our nation, that at present if 
any person wishes to hear a full and thorough course of lec- 
tures on the history of this country he must go to Paris or 
Berlin for it." 

We, in North Carolina, have had historians, but our history 
js yet to be written. The history of our State must be justly 
written, published to the world and transmitted to posterity, 
in order that our o\yn character and that of our ancestors may 
be vindicated from calumny, and may endure as a priceless 
heritage for the youth of future generations. 

This work must be done at the University of the State, 
around which cluster the glories of a century, and where the 
State must look for its freest, loftiest and noblest culture in 
literature, science and art. 

Here, in this vast building, erected by the patriotism of the 
people, dedicated to greta purposes; in the presence of this 
large assembly of the noblest and best, of the beauty and wit 
of our land ; yes ! in the presence of the mighty dead, whose spirits 
we invoke on this solemn occasion, we will one and all resolve 
that the memorials of their glories shall be gathered, and let 
the honor of leading in this movement belong to the Almmii 
of the University. 



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